[Maneuvers Manual] Interdiction!
You’re reading or watching the latest battle report and numbers, probabilities, unit names, and statistics are being thrown around like so much Jaerako feces. You can make sense out of most of it, but then a term or an idea or a tactic is mentioned that you don’t recognize or understand fully. Now, as a hobbyist intending to develop and refine your generalship skills, you’re not getting all you can out of the battle report or conversation. What you need is to take a quick look inside Littleplasticmen.net’s Maneuvers Manual:
This edition of Maneuvers Manual discusses Interdiction, a highly-useful tactical ploy that can mean the difference between keeping a unit— one vital to your armies overall strategy—from becoming a casualty before it has the chance to achieve its strategic goals and aims.
Maneuver: Interdiction
Within military strategy, interdiction is the delay, disruption, or destruction of enemy forces, goals, or plans. In a strategic sense this might mean disrupting a supply line, delaying the arrival of a particular force to a battle area, or destroying a key element of enemy forces before it can be brought to bear to achieve strategic advantage. In tactical operations (of the sort that Warhammer 40,000 and nearly all war games represent) interdicting actions are intended to achieve a localized affect within a specific military engagement. In a game of Warhammer 40,000 this can mean the movement of a unit or units who are tasked to disrupt, delay, or destroy an enemy unit or units on the table-top, preventing their movement, reducing their combat effectiveness, or stopping them from achieving a specific goal that would be detrimental to your own army’s aims. Interdiction presents a variety of tactical uses, primary of which is helping to ensure the units you want to keep alive do not become casualties, by sacrificing less valuable units in their place (or ideally sacrificing units that are deployed with the purposed of interdiction in mind)
Let us view some visual aids to consider how interdiction can be utilized to address a difficult tactical situation. In the example below, we have a unit of Space Marine Devastators who are facing the unfortunate prospect of an imminent charge from one of the most fearsome close assault units in the game, Bloodletters of Khorne. This is not ideal for the devastators who are a dedicated long-range attack unit that can only fire deadly powerful salvos if they do not move, which limits there ability to flee from the threat. Thankfully for the Legions Astartes, a unit of scouts is nearby enough that they might be able to be alleviate, dissipate, or impede the demon threat to allow the devastators to do their work.
Beyond what the above example demonstrates, interdiction can be achieved via other means and action . Attacking by fire or assault, simple blocking or screening maneuvers can be used to disrupt or delay an enemy agenda temporarily or permanently.
Action: Interdiction via Movement/Obstruction (aka “screening”)
As demonstrated via the above visual aids, often all that is required to interdict an enemy unit is tactical movement that obstructs and delays a enemy units ability to reach its intended target. This is often called “screening” or providing a “speedbump” to your enemy. Interdiction is a sound tactic though it likely creates a situation where a unit is “sacrificed” in the place of the more tactically valuable unit — this might be because the interdicting unit is no match for the enemy unit in close assault or in attacking by fire, or because the movement required for effective interdiction disallows an interdiction via assault, thus limiting their combat effectiveness should they receive an enemy charge versus initiating a charge upon the enemy However, because units have maximum movement and ranges that cannot be disputed or altered by probability or odds, often the only truly reliable means to interdict an opposing force is via the means of movement and obstruction. For direct example If an enemy unit that could normally attack or assault an enemy unit that is within its less than 12” threat range, if an obstructing unit can be employed to increase the distance between your valuable unit and threat to more than 12” inches, for that turn at least, the enemies threat range is exceeded and your unit is unengaged and free to act.
Action: Interdiction via Assaults (aka “counter assault”)
For units that hold a reasonable chance of delaying, attenuating, or destroying threatening enemy unit(s), Interdiction via assault can often be the most effective and tactically sound means of doing so. Interdiction via assault calls on secondary units to maneuver to within assault range (normally 6”-12”) and engage the enemy force with the intention to destroy or “tie up” enemy units, so that they cannot reach the unit you wish to protect on this or future turns. The very important downside of the interdiction by assault is that should your units lose combat and fail to keep your enemy engaged through their (opposing players assault phase), the hostile unit will be free to act in its next phase to continue its tactical aim. And because of the rule of Consolidation, the enemy unit will be even 1-6” closer to your precious unit(s) than before the interdiction was attempted. And that could means you’ve just made your enemies plans all the more likely to succeed.
Action: Interdiction via Attacking (aka “counter attack”)
Another interdicting action that can be utilized to disrupt or destroy enemy actions is achieved through attacking by means of fire, or ranged attack. This can be a decisive means of interdiction because attacking by fire has the potential to completely destroy a threatening unit. Interdiction via attack can have the less ideal but still significant effect of reducing the combat effectiveness of enemy units, which is a form of disruption, in reducing their combat effectiveness. While this may not be as ideal as destroying the threat, weakening your enemy can often be enough to downgrade the threat to a nuisance. At times, this may be the only option available to some generals as most units have a much greater threat range with attacking by fire (12+) than with assault (6+). However with the proliferation of armor, invulnerable saves, and cover in the present game landscape, in combination with the fact that the fickleness of dice can make all attacks negligible, if a unit cannot be destroyed outright you are forced to rely upon forcing pinning or moral checks, which really cannot be relied upon to truly interrupt or delay an overwhelming force. It certainly wouldn’t work in the pictorial example above; bloodletters are fearless. If even one survives they present an undeniable threat to a small unit of space marines.
Method: Multiple Interdictions
A skilled, lucky or especially paranoid general may employ multiple interdicting maneuvers in concert, employing several units and methods of interdiction to ensure that their own military assets are protected while disrupting, delaying, or destroying the most important assets of their opponent. In combining a variety of interdicting actions of various types he or she can create redundancy and greater probability that the enemies own interdicting actions will fail. To this end, a prudent general always considers during deployment and during the evolution of his or her game how interdiction and units that excel at that role can help support and preserve their battle plan.
Logistical (list-building) Implications of Interdiction: Dedicated Interdictors
In practical use, a wise tactician will consider what forces available can be used in either defensive or aggressive interdictions in support of their overall battle plan. This effort can begin during the logistics or list-building phase, in mustering units that can serve purposes well. A general whose battle-plan require keeping units intact and free from enemy attacks and assaults, whether they are assigned the role of firebase or objective holder, can benefit from forethought. For most armies jump infantry, mechanized infantry, calvary, or (jet)bikes, fulfill the role of interdictors, though any sort of unit has the potential to interdict, whether it be by assault, fire or movement. The specific units dedicated to this battlefield role will vary from army to army, codex to codex, general to general, but a wise tactician will be served well to consider how a particular unit or units dedicated to an interdicting tactic can benefit their overall strategy and battle plan of their army.
Tactical & Strategic Implications of Interdiction
Interdiction is a supporting maneuver, one designed to allow for the more likely completion of a secondary or tertiary objective via a delaying, disrupting, or destroying action on the behalf of another unit, often taking the form of a sacrificial action on the part of a less strategically or tactically valuable unit. A commander can factor this maneuver into their battle plan, in using interdiction units to protect valuable units at the rear of their force, or in employing less valuable interdiction units on the assault to lesson or eliminate the effectiveness of counter assaults or attacks. Likewise a general can plan their interdiction strategies around strong attack by fire units that can disrupt or destroy enemy strategies via interdiction actions at range. Again, forethought in developing a strong, cohesive battle plan pays dividends on the table-top. Chance favors the prepared mind (...of the table-top war gamer). Regardless of how one utilizes interdiction, during strategic planning or to counter an enemy action, it is an invaluable tactical tool that belongs in the repertoire of any skilled general, whether they take the field now or 41 millennia into the future.
About the Maneuvers Manual:
The Maneuvers Manual is a regular column that focuses on demonstrating practical battlefield maneuvers for both neophyte and experienced generals. Through employment of clear, concise discussion of game mechanics, tactics, strategies, and principals of warfare, accompanied by scale, accurate visual aids, the maneuvers manual hopes to expand understanding of the tactical and strategic possibilities and practices available to generals of table-top war games .
Upcoming Maneuver Manual entries:
Maneuvers Manual: Firebase
Maneuvers Manual: Tar-pit
Maneuvers Manual: Weight of Fire
Maneuvers Manual: Counterassault
Maneuvers Manual (Gamey Edition!): Clearing Objectives
Maneuvers Manual (Gamey Edition!): Claim Jumping
…And More